


Clarity.

by Katefkndoes



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Flashbacks, I don't know, M/M, Pre-Slash, Probably not as bad as it sounds, Self-Mutilation, Spoilers for Winter Soldier, Wingfic, implied Natasha Romanov/Steve Rogers - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-12
Updated: 2014-04-12
Packaged: 2018-01-19 01:10:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1449736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katefkndoes/pseuds/Katefkndoes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something is wrong with Steve and the Soldier struggles to figure out what it is.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>See notes for potential warning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Clarity.

**Author's Note:**

> This wasn't exactly what I was hoping to write, but since I've been bouncing the idea around in my head for about 2 years, I figured I might as well just write something to get it out - and save my sanity. Also, I blame The Cab - Angel With A Shotgun entirely for this fic. 
> 
> All mistakes are my own, and I apologise for them. Also, I'm sorry about the atrocious title.
> 
> There is self-mutilation, and references to drug taking but I don't think there is anything *that* bad in here, but I figured it was better to warn than not.

His objective in life was simple. Locate the target and destroy.  He had done it more than hundred times over too many decades. He was their weapon and they used him well.  

There was no pain, no emotion, only the desire to complete his missions.  To hunt and destroy was his only purpose.  He felt more machine than man – although still constrained by a mostly flesh form.  It was as though his metal arm had eaten away at what humanity he must have one had, or had he been born like it?  He couldn’t remember, but it didn’t matter anymore.

They said he shaped the century, but he didn't see how from his cryo-chamber.

Every time he woke up the world was different – but the same - bleaker and more dirty.

His latest mission had his handlers a little spooked but nothing struck him as particularly concerning.  The only curiosity was how urgent the call to arms had been.

Ordinarily, (or so he vaguely recalled), he would have been given a complete briefing on his target, but this this time the order came too late.  Not that he needed a reason to kill, but he supposed he liked to have a handle on what he was facing.  He liked to know a little about his target’s thought process, to make their termination as clean as possible.

Nevertheless, killing three targets was hardly the most taxing mission he remembered being issued.  Then again, he didn’t _really_ remember anything but death.

If he had been able to think for himself, it might have struck him as odd that his mission was be so last minute, but he was trained to be so single-mindedly focused in his endeavors that the thought did not occur to him.  All he saw was the car that contained his objectives – even in broad daylight he saw it as an easy mission.

Four targets (not three), three male and one female.

One – the unexpected surprise - was dispatched with on the first strike, a run of the mill attack.  The bitch would be easy; he could snap her neck as soon as look at her.  He made her his first target – destroy the vulnerable to weaken the strong.  The chances were high that she was a mate to one of the men, and that would open them up to their precious emotions when he cut her down.  Irrationality bred mistakes.

The red-head had more spunk than he had initially given her credit for; her fighting skills were in the top percentile of people he had ever faced.  He felt something swell within him, not quite pleasure, but certainly satisfaction – or as close to it has he ever got.  Even so, she lacked his physical strength and, to some degree, his focused brutality.  He was in no doubt that he could overcome her, she cared too much about those around – it diminished her focus.

Then it happened.

In the blink of an eye he was ripped away with inhuman force, leaving her to skitter off into freedom. He had predicted her partner would want to fight for her, but he had assumed he would make the kill first.  However, it was of little consequence, he had yet to meet a man he couldn’t destroy – even if this particular man was stronger than the average.  It would be stimulating to face a quarry worthy of his mettle. 

Buoyed by a new sense of confidence, he turned to face his adversary.

Something was wrong about the blond; it caused him to pause for a moment.  Something didn’t quite fit, but he was at a loss to describe exactly what.  In a fraction of a second, any doubt he held that this target was anything approaching normal was completely destroyed.  The man fought like no one he’d ever faced before – just as quick and strong as him, but comprised entirely of flesh and bone.  The metal arm hit with enough force to shatter brick, but the blond blocked the blows with comparative ease and fit back with a power he had never experienced.

In another life, he might have thought them brothers, but he was no man.  He was created not born.

Their violent dance escalated quickly.  Each struggled to gain the upper hand, but they were evenly matched.  He lost his face guard with a powerful blow to his face.  Personally, he hated the thing, but they insisted that he wore it – his mask of anonymity.  The cool breeze danced across his cheeks, and he blinked several times against the additional light exposure.

The blond paused.  Face full of anguish, but he just snarled in response.

“B-Bucky?”  He half-faltered, the light behind him blurring his outline and making him appear so much more than a man.  There was a haze around the blond, and his face softened – a picture of forgiveness that he hadn’t earned.  He looked like a… there was a word he no longer remembered.

“Who the hell is Bucky?”  He replied, ice cold.  His enemy appeared more pained by that sentence than any body blow he had suffered.  There was something tugging at the corner of mind – or at least what was left of it.  The man in front of him wasn’t his usual kill, there was something familiar.

It intrigued him.

Before he could receive an answer, his reinforcements arrived.  They always showed up when they were not needed.  He was forced into an unmarked van – out of sight of all of the dull apes which had gathered to watch the spectacle.

\-----

_The group of boys were laughing_ _maniacally_ _, kicking at a small bundle on the floor of the alley.  At first, he thought it was a dog, but the whimper that resounded off the walls was definitely human.  He took a few steps closer, and saw the heap shift as the group continued their assault.  He’d promised his mama that he would_ _stay out of fights, but he couldn’t just leave them to attack him._

_“Hey!”  He yelled, pulling off the nearest of the three boys and throwing him to the ground.  The next one turned to swing at him, but he levelled him with a punch to the jaw.  The third looked up at him from across the prone figure they had been tormenting.  “You sure you wanna explain a black eye?”  He looked at the younger boy who promptly ran off down the alley._

_He allowed himself a moment of victory at his resounding win; before he knelt down to attend to their victim._

_“I can take care of myself,” a soft voice said as the boy sat up, blood gushing from a broken nose.  “I’m not a child.”  He looked at the boy for a long moment, they were probably around the same age, but the other boy looked a lot younger._

_“No, but you sure looked like you needed a hand.”  The blond looked at him for a long moment; he was all blond hair, big eyes, and skinny limbs.  Bucky knew what hunger looked like, it was everywhere these days._

_“Thank you,” he said conceding the point, as he took Bucky’s hand and allowed himself to be pulled up._

_“I’m James Buchanan Barnes, but everyone calls me Bucky,” he shook the blond’s boney hand._

_“Steve Rogers.”  He replied, a small smile on his face._

_“Well Steve Rogers, you look like you could do with a friend.”_

_\-----_

The memory scratched at his eyes.  He couldn’t remember being that dark-haired boy, but he knew that he must have been.  The blond boy was so small; he wondered what happened to him, and how he was linked to his target.

He was so distracted by the fragmented images that were pinging around his empty head, that he couldn’t help but vocalize his thoughts.  He should have known better, but he hadn’t experienced anything like it before.  Not that he could remember at any rate – but things were so fuzzy.  What was wrong with the man, why was there something familiar about it, why did he know him?  A thousand and one thoughts, running through his mind.

It hurt.

“But… I knew him,” he mumbled.  It wasn’t that simple, of course, he didn’t so much know his target as recognize that he should.  It was just another piece of him that was missing.  Dimly, he wondered whether someone was collecting all of the stolen pieces and rebuilding him somewhere better.

Somehow, though, he doubted it.

He was a blunt instrument.  Designed to kill.  He was so far past redemption, that he couldn’t really tell what it looked like anymore.

\-----

_“Buck, you know she’s not going to want to dance with me.”  Steve was resigned to the fact that no woman would ever notice him.  He wished that he could tell the blond otherwise, but the truth was that women were oddly blind when it came to their dates.  Sure, it worked in his favor most of the time, but he couldn’t fathom why dames were so unwilling to give Steve a chance.  He represented the very best of men._

_“Just give her a chance,” he smiled.  Steve sighed, knowing that he would never win this particular argument._

_“Okay, but you’re gonna owe me more Dodgers tickets.”  That was their joke – Steve’s way of dealing.  For every girl that turned him down, Bucky owed him a ticket.  Of course, there had been far more girls than tickets –money was tight -, but Bucky tried his best to offset the balance._

_\-----_

The next time he saw him – Captain Steven Rogers, his brief told him – the familiarity had been mostly erased.  Instead, all he saw was a man who chose to wear a flag to work.  The edges of the blond were still blurred but nothing remained for the Soldier to believe in.  He was an empty vessel once more – his only job to do exactly what they instructed.

“You know me,” he repeated, desperation creeping into his voice.  But to no avail.  “Your name is James Buchanan Barnes.”  The Captain added, and for a moment he tested the name in his head.  There was something recognizable about it, but it wasn’t his name – it couldn’t be.  And there was certainly nothing substantial enough about it to drag him back from wherever he was caged.

The skirmish became a little one-sided after that.

The man wouldn’t fight him off – refused to pick up his shield, and wouldn’t throw a punch.  Even though the idea of winning a fight where there was so little challenge was not one he relished, he found that it was something more that stilled hit hits.  The face before him was bruised and battered – at his hand – but he saw happy memories ghosting over the wounds. 

The thought nearly choked him.

There was a flash of them together, his arm around the blond’s bulky shoulders and their smiles twinned in happiness.  He blinked several times, trying to find more of the memory, but could call nothing up.  He looked at the man, hand poised to hit him again.

Then the bottom of his world fell out – literally.

Rogers fell as if in slow motion.  He watched as the blur spread all around him, creating a shimmering effect that could not solely be contributed to the light.  The blond hit the water and he jumped right in after him.  Later, he tried to convince himself that he needed to escape his own destruction in the crash – but that didn’t explain why he had dragged the unconscious man to the banks of the river.

\-----

_Steve was sick again.  Bucky had been up all night making sure that he was still breathing.  There had been several agonizing moments where the blond’s breath would hitch and Bucky would think he had stopped breathing altogether.  All he could do was watch as Steve coughed and spluttered back into his shallow breathing._

_“Morning, pal,” he said as Steve opened his eyes.  His face was still pale, his lips chapped and his cheeks hallow.  “You feeling any better?”  Steve opened his mouth to answer and was sent into a coughing fit.  “I guess not.”  He sighed.  Medicine was expensive, and Steve was ill so often that they couldn’t afford much more than some extra blankets, plenty of water and some pitifully weak soup to fight off illness._

_“Doesn’t hurt as much,” Steve stifled a cough.  The smaller man’s assurances did little to calm him; he had been around enough dying people to know that they sometimes got better before they passed away.  “I think I just need some more sleep.  I’ll be fine Buck,” he murmured._

_Steve was laid up for another two weeks before he was finally well enough to leave their apartment._

_\-----_

It was rather puzzling to be without orders.

For the longest time they were all he had known.  When he’d looked back at the broken pieces of his memories all he could see was a black cloud.  However, that cloud was beginning to dissipate, a bright beam of sun breaking through the darkness of his damaged soul.

It was almost as though he was dead, but something was tethering him to the mortal realm.  Every so often he would get a Technicolor flash of another life – one where he barely recognized himself.  He would see the man with big blue eyes, and spun-gold hair.  A man of small stature with a big mouth that got him in trouble more often than not.  And he saw… something else.

Something, that wasn’t quite there.  Some connection he couldn’t make.  Something, which couldn’t exist outside of his dreams.

\-----

_The table had stopped feeling cold beneath him, but he hurt everywhere from the tips of his fingers to the pit of his stomach.  However, the dull ache was an almost pleasant sensation next to the searing agony he had suffered through before the Doctors had grown tired of their experiments.  He had no concept of time, the room was dark, but sometimes it was when the Doctors were there.  Sometimes they blinded him with lights, but more often they just poked and prodded.  They asked him questions – he gave them nothing._

_He could have been there a day; it might have been a week._

_“Sergeant James Barnes…” he mumbled on a loop, like they had taught him to do in the event of capture. He clung on to his name like a crutch; it was the only thing that offered him a sense of grounding._

_“Bucky,” he heard someone call.  It sounded like… he shook his head.  That was impossible.  “It’s me.”  There was a presence by his side.  “It’s Steve.”  He looked up to see a familiar face, and wondered what they had done to him this time._

_“Steve?”  He questioned groggily, because it just couldn’t be.  There was the sound of ripping and his arms were free to move for the first time in what felt like an eternity._

_“Come on,” he was pulled off the table and straight into strong arms, and a broad chest._

_“Steve?”  He asked; his head still foggy.  Steve couldn’t be there, it was impossible._

_“I thought you were dead,” the blue eyes looked at him, full of something that Bucky had rarely seen reflected back at him.  He found himself leaning into the hand that touched his face.  It was a familiar action from an unfamiliar hand.  He looked at Steve, taking in his squared jaw, broadened shoulders and increased height._

_“I thought you were smaller,” he replied._

_Steve merely smiled in response._

_\-----_

His memories were far from complete.  Some of them ended abruptly and some of them seemed almost airbrushed – like the girls on the billboards, or the movie stars on the posters that were suddenly everywhere.  The edges were too focused.  Too clear – but incomplete at the same time

Steve Rogers was the skinny little boy he had grown up with, but he was also Captain America.  He had moments where he could see the broad shoulders of America’s hero decorated in the Star Spangled Banner.  But it still took him a perplexingly long time to associate the two men – their features were the same but not.  And Steve Rogers should never have grown up to be so powerful.

In hindsight, he should have taken a trip to the museum when the Captain first told him his name.  But at the same time, he had been so caught up in the spiral of disbelief, which came with rediscovering himself that he wanted little more than to run out of his own skin.  As it was, he had settled for looting a CVS and patching up his injured arm.  In truth, it was more out of habit than any notion that disabling his arm with a sling, and chewing down on painkillers would be particularly affective on his obviously broken arm.

He stared at the display for so long that the other visitors started whispering about him.  He moved around the exhibit, searching inside to try and find the man from the photographs.  He looked at the images of his target all around – the one who had once been as close as any brother.  The pictures were wrong somehow, but he couldn’t explain why.  They weren’t altered like his memories, but they felt empty.  He had no clue why they were wrong, he just _knew_ it in his bones – something was missing and he couldn’t explain what.

For a fleeting second, he let himself believe that Steve was the same as him – incomplete and searching. 

He doubted it.

Still, the museum marked the beginning of his new mission.

\-----

_“I’m not different,” Steve said, moving across the room to sit next to him on the small cot that groaned under their respective weights._

_“Could have fooled me,” Bucky shrugged.  They hadn’t really spoken since Steve had pulled him out of hell, and marched them ten miles back to base; four hundred men following him as though they were born to do it._

_“This,” he gestured across his body and the bed shook, “it’s just physical.  It doesn’t change me.”  He said, somewhat sadly.  The thing was, Bucky knew that was true, but there was a cognitive dissidence between his Steve and Captain America.  His Steve reminded him of home, and everything he was fighting to save.  He had delicate features, protruding bones and a massive chip on his shoulder.  Captain America was the man from the comic books -unrealistically strong, big and broad where Steve had been thin and narrow.  A figurehead to lead the troops and inspire heroism, someone to look up to not to ignore. “You always told me size didn’t matter.”  He looked down at his now large hands, wringing them out and looking at them as though they weren’t his._

_“I know… it’s just…” he sighed.  So much remained to be said between them, but it would have to wait for another time, because there were ears everywhere.  “It takes a lot to get used to.”  He nudged Steve with his elbow like they had always done back in Brooklyn, but all he found was solid muscle.  It was… disconcerting._

_He would have given anything to keep Steve out of the war.  Even when he was on Zola’s table, the thought that Steve was safe got him through the agony._

_And now Steve was there, throwing himself into danger._

_\-----_

For a man who probably had one of the most recognizable faces in American history, it had not been hard to locate Steve Rogers.  He had assumed that the man would seek to go unnoticed, but the truth was that he mingled with the public every day, and most people never batted so much as an eyelash at him.  He followed the blond around for a few days, before he decided to go in for a closer look.

Even Rogers’ small non-descript apartment had a familiar feel to it.  He should have found it strange, but as he walked through to the lounge and saw the bullet holes, he knew that he had been there before.  He recognized his work when he saw it.  That was the thing about the treatment he received, he could never be sure whether he was treading fresh turf or walking around in one big circle, with no clue that he was treading the same steps day after day.

Mostly, he had grown used to the emptiness, but every now and again he felt that tug at some buried part of him.

Shaking himself from his thoughts, he concentrated on his investigation.  Though the dwelling was sparsely decorated, there were a few trinkets and possessions that the Captain had managed to accumulate over the months since he had been pulled from the ice.  They told him more about the man, than any briefing could.  He dragged his metal fingers across the coach, and pawed through the collection of drawings he found on the small work desk – faces of the long dead staring back at him as though from his own scattered memories.

He picked one up and gazed at his own image staring back at him.  He wished he remembered how it felt to be Bucky.

“I never could get your eyes right,” the familiar voice startled him.  It took a hell of a lot these days to get the jump on him, in fact it had been so long that he couldn’t recall the last time anyone had.  He spun around to see at his former target, former friend, and former brother.  Steve’s hands were in his pockets – a typical method he used to calm his nerves, - and he was leaning against a nearby wall.  The Soldier remembered seeing the blond do that before – back when he was smaller.  It was like that whenever he saw Steve, odd pieces of ancient memories dribbling back.

“You survived.”  He said after a moment, discarding the drawing back onto the table.

“I had help,” Steve replied, taking a few steps closer.  He drew his hands from his pockets and held them up in a ‘wait’ gesture.  Slowly, he pulled his wallet out of his jacket pocket and opened it, pausing between each movement so that he didn’t spook his guest.  “Here, you should have this.”  He pulled out a photograph of two different men, a lifetime before, took a step forward and placed it on the desk, before retreating back across the room.

He didn’t recognize that life.  He wished that he could, but he didn’t know whether he ever would.

If Steve was surprised when he pushed past him in his haste to leave, he certainly didn’t show it.

Not for the first time, he suspected his would-be, former, friend knew him better than he knew himself.

\-----

_Steve was the only man Bucky had ever met who could get offered free sex in a brothel and turn it down.  It was almost painful to watch him dance around the issue with the second girl – a pretty brunette - who had propositioned him.  If he had been in that position, Bucky was sure he wouldn’t have been nearly as chivalrous.  But then, Steve had all these notions of the right partner, and he was convinced that he would never get back to Brooklyn._

_There would be no future for him; he had faced that fact before Steve had even made it to the front lines.  Before Captain America had proven himself a real American hero.  He had faced it when he was tied to a bed with no hope for escape, and the only clear thought he had other than his own name was that he was sacrificing himself so that Steve could survive._

_But Steve was fighting next to him now, still full of hope and capable of dreams.  But Bucky had always considered himself a realist._

_\-----_

Three days after he had been surprised in Steve’s apartment, he returned to take the photo.  It had been waiting for him on the desk – he wondered whether Steve knew him better than he knew himself.  He stared at it for a long time.

When he started getting more detailed memories of the Soldier’s crimes, he would take it out of his jacket pocket and stare at it to try and find something good in him.  The memories of two different lives were merging.

He broke into another CVS and stole a whole bunch of drugs, but he didn’t go back to see Steve.

\-----

_He picked up the shield, his heart beating so loudly in his ears that he could barely hear the train’s engine.  The shot came quicker than he’d expected, and he was thrown backwards through the gaping hole in the side of the train.  He held on to a rail, stunned at how far he had travelled, when Steve made handling the shield look so simple._

_The rail began to give way, and he realized exactly how he would die.  Seeing Steve appear in the hole was almost a blessing - one perfect thing to look at before he died.  Even as he fell, staring up at Steve’s heartbroken face, he wasn’t scared.  All he wanted was to let Steve know that it wasn’t his fault – that he wasn’t to blame._

_It didn’t matter about him.  Not as long as Steve was alive.  If Steve survived the war then he had done his job._

_He didn’t feel the ground._

_\-----_

The hours turn into days, days into weeks, and the weeks became four months.

Four months of running away from his memories, only to have them catch up with him.

They came in fits and starts, but were so fragmented that they didn’t always make a whole lot of sense.  He remembered Steve in great detail – skinny, all big eyes and pink lips – and he remembered the war and the new iteration of his friend whose shoulders could fill a doorway, and who attracted appreciative glances for three square blocks in every direction.

He recalled being Bucky to some extent, but with those memories came the details of the Soldier’s crimes.  He was sick more times than he could remember.  He destroyed hotel rooms, totaled cars, and pulled street thugs off victims.  He wondered around Moscow, Paris, London and New York, trying to find more of himself.  Trying to be who Steve wanted him to be.  Trying to be Bucky.

When he finally figured out what was so different about Steve, he left Paris on the next available flight and headed back to DC.  Fidgeting with anticipation the whole way.

\-----

_He knew there was something wrong the moment he walked into the apartment.  Steve was nowhere to be seen and an uneasy silence filled the air.  His eyes traced over their small abode, looking for any indication of his friend’s location.  When he saw the blood on the bathroom door, he exhaled in frustration._

_“Steve?”  He called loudly, knocking the door.  “Why don’t you ever learn?”  He whispered, but was aware of how much the sound reverberated across their whole home._

_“Bucky, just…” Steve paused, probably trying to strengthen his trembling voice.  “Just don’t come in here,” he pleaded.  There was a noticeable shake to his voice, and Bucky heaved a sigh of annoyance.  The door was not hard to get through – he had done it more often than he could count – he jimmied the door with ease._

_“What do you think…” the words stopped but his mouth kept moving.  “I, a – oh.”  He mumbled, his eyes following a river of red straight to Steve’s shaking form which was situated in the middle of the room.  He allowed his eyes to continue their route to the knife that Steve still held in quavering fingers as it dripped blood onto the badly mangled lump of flesh that was crumpled on the floor._

_The room was painted red with blood splatter and Steve’s face was covered in two trails of tears._

_He turned his head and threw up._

_“Christ,” he muttered, retching in an attempt to choke back the rest of his stomach.  Once he was recovered he straightened up, and dragged the back of his hand over his mouth to wipe away the remaining vomit.  “What the hell did you do?”_

_There was no weighing of opinions, his friend was in trouble and he needed to help.  He rushed forward, kneeling at Steve’s side and ignoring the blood that was soaking through his best slacks.  He wanted to slap his friend and call him stupid, but there would be time for that after he had made certain that he was okay._

_Steve moved forward easily, in complete compliance of his wishes, and he retched again at the sight of his friend’s back.  There was blood everywhere – more than Bucky had ever seen, and he had grown up on the streets._

_“You just – you have to…”  Steve mumbled, gesturing frantically to the dismembered feathered flesh before turning the knife over in his hands and handing it to him.  Though he took the knife, he looked at it for a long time before he was able to speak._

_“You had…” he fumbled over his words, and gingerly reached out to touch what remained of the mutilated stump attached to Steve.  “That’s a wing… you had…” he opened and closed his mouth a few times.  Eventually, he made the sign of the cross as he muttered, “Christ.”_

_“Finish it,” Steve instructed with as much force as he could muster._

_“I don’t think I…” he trailed off.  The knife was in his hands but he couldn’t bring himself to bring it up to Steve’s back._

_“S’most done,” Steve half-slurred, refusing to make eye contact.  There was blood everywhere, all over the floor.  On Steve.  On his hands.  He looked down at the knife in his hands in shock.  “Please, just do it.  Let me be normal.”  Steve begged.  He met his friend’s gaze with incredulous blue eyes._

_“I never saw them,” he admitted, as he gently touched the blond’s shoulder.  Steve had wings and he had hacked them off._

_“I…” Steve started, before he started shaking with tears.  He realized that his friend had probably been crying for a while, and he had yet to offer him any comfort.  “Bucky, please.”_

_“I’ll do it.”  He heard the tremble in his own voice, and watched with foreign eyes as his shaking hands made the final cut to what remained of the wing._

_After, he drew Steve towards him, not caring that his clothes were getting ruined.  He stroked a bloodied hand through blond hair, and clutched Steve’s smaller body as close to him as he could._

_Steve had wings, and he’d never seen them._

_\-----_

He watched Steve return to Natasha’s apartment.  A lot had changed in the months since he had run away, but it hadn’t taken a great amount of effort to discover that the two Avengers were now roommates.  He wondered whether they were sleeping together, he hoped not, but it was a comfort that Steve had found some place in the modern world – even if he couldn’t.

The nerves built in him as he stood outside.  Natasha had been called away on assignment, and Steve had returned home only twenty minutes before.  The Soldier would have climbed in through the window, or broken down the door.  But SoldierBucky was an amalgamation of two men, and he knocked the door.

“Buck…” Steve said, uneasily shifting from one foot to the other.  The blond had answered the door with such speed that it was fairly obvious he’d been waiting for him to knock – that Steve had known he was there.  He didn’t say anything as Steve stepped back and gestured for him to come in.

The flat was larger than Steve’s had been and there were touches of both of them around the place.  Although, Bucky was pleased to note, that there appeared to be two separate bedrooms off the main hall.

“Do you – uh- ” Steve faltered, and then barked out an uncomfortable laugh as he stood in the middle of the room.

“I see you.”  He – Bucky, he guessed – replied simply.  “I see all of you.”  Steve’s eyes widened in surprise, like he never expected anyone to say that to him.

“I wasn’t sure you’d remember.”  The Captain shrugged his shoulders and the wings moved with him.  Now that he can finally see what the distortion was, it was painfully obvious.  The beautiful translucent wings, both powerful and delicate, shimmered in the sunlight.  He remembered the way that Steve had hidden them from the world, how he didn’t want to use them.  But he had done nothing but study footage of Steve since the moment he finally figured it out, and he saw that they were always his to command.

Gingerly, he reached out a hand to touch them.  They felt like silken razors, and Steve shuddered at his touch.

“Who else?”  He asked, because there was something beyond intimate about seeing Steve as he really was.  The wings spread out taking up more room than he had thought possible, and he realized that he didn’t particularly like the idea of sharing that experience with people.

“Maybe Nat,” Steve replied carefully, but paused to think.  “Probably just you.”  He added.  “I don’t know, I’ve never really asked, I can’t image people would be forthcoming with that admission.”

“Can you fly me away from here?”  Steve pulled a pained face at the suggestion.  He remembered how surprised he’d been when Steve tore him out of the hospital straps, and he saw the wings in all their glory.  They had once been small and a sickly grey but the serum improved all of him, and his wingspan was nothing short of expansive.  “Could you take me back?  Could you fix me?”  He asked, and there was a childlike vulnerability in his tone that is alien to his own ears.

“It doesn’t work like that, Buck,” Steve sighed, and looked at him without breaking eye contact.

“We’re only half-men,” he said, because he knew he would never be complete again, but Steve more than made up for all of his deficits.

“Don’t say things like that.  You can’t help what they made you,” Steve looked down at him through improbably long eyelashes, and placed a heavy hand on his robotic shoulder.  “You could have let me die, but you didn’t.”

“I’m not sure you can die.”  He admitted, because it had been years since he laid himself bare for anyone to look at him.

“I died when I thought I’d lost you again,” the Captain said with a smile.

“Always so dramatic.”  It was a strangely comforting banter, and it came as naturally to him as breathing.

“I learned from the best.”  Steve grinned, pulling him in a bruising hug.  It might have been tight enough stifle his breathing, but he never wanted it to end.

“I’m not fixed.”  He admitted, once Steve had released him, because while they were being honest, it seemed appropriate to let Steve know where he stood.  “I’m not sure I’ll ever be Bucky.”  Steve closed his eyes.

“I’m just glad you’re not trying to cave in my skull.  We’ll figure out the rest.”  He replied, a vaguely amused tint in his eye.  The wings closed around them in a comforting cocoon, separating them from the outside world, and covering him with Steve’s smell.

For the first time, in a long time, he finally felt happy.

 


End file.
